[worry]

I dunno. If I'm reading things correctly, it seems that out of all the people involved in this story, it was the woman who got second-guessed, condescended to, and harassed, and then fired for defending herself, by a company that extracted her talent and then fed her to the wolves, that had a chip on her shoulder this whole time.

[worry]

Alternative Goose, on 16 November 2018 - 08:20 PM, said:

I'm going to interrupt this discussion to mention that Acosta got his White House press pass back.

https://www.cnn.com/...ring/index.html

They'll just not take his questions but still I'm looking forward to some even more awkward press conferences.

Can't wait to see these rules on decorum.

I wonder how the rest of the press corps will deal with the whole thing. Are they gonna lay off out of fear, are they gonna get more pointed out of solidarity, are they gonna go back to business as usual?

[Malankazooie]

My my, how the worm turns. Based on the established criteria, looks like the 'Lock Her Up!' chant/mantra applies now to Ivanka Trump.

[Aptorian]

It's not the same. Ivanka is so young, and uhm, she's not a professional politician like Hillary, and uhm, she's not a trained e-mailed person, and uhm, it was just some scheduling stuff, and uhm, it's not like she was trying to hide anything like crooked Hilary and the pizza Benghazi conspiracy .. Really, this is the Democrats fault. Why haven't they arrested Hilary Clinton yet?!

[Cause]

Do Ivanka and Jared get salaries?

I mean the fact that his son in law and daughter both work for his administration is something I am amazed that people don't make more of a fuss over.

[Macros]

if you take nepotism and cronyism out of politics, what do you have left??

[Gorefest]

Sex scandals.

[Morgoth]

Alternative Goose, on 15 November 2018 - 02:32 PM, said:

Morgoth, on 15 November 2018 - 01:14 PM, said:

Alternative Goose, on 15 November 2018 - 12:37 PM, said:

*Clears throat* Well Cause, before the leftist Zionist fake news destroyed the reputation of Gamer Gate, the movement was actually about more transparency in media. Specifically about the relationship between the press and the developers/publishers. Funny enough, when the shitstorm then descended on the industry and the media, the whole thing suddenly became about misogyny and the evil alt-right. Instead of examining their own ethics, the media made it about feminists and hatespeech. Quietly the media have fixed a lot of their shit in the interim but before Gamer Gate became the hive of scum and villainy it is now, there was that brief moment where it actually had merit. I think it lasted a week before it started rotting from the inside.

It started with the ex boyfriend of a minor games developer accusing his ex of all manner of nonsense that was quickly disproved. This however did not prevent a bunch of angry men on the internet from fomenting a hate campaign against her. It all started getting serious traction on 4chan, because of course it did. The exgirlfriend in question had to flee her own home for a while after receiving numerous of death threats. Also, for whatever reason only apparent to the same angry gamers, Anita Sarkeesian was pulled into the whole thing. Despite her having done nothing more in the interim than produce a few youtube videos about feminism and video games. Claims about collusion and bribery within the gaming press proved largely baseless, which influenced the movement not at all.

Not long after that Milo Yiannopoulos got involved as a major name in the movement, and the whole thing somehow managed to get even worse from there.

Apt likes to pretend there ever was something more to gamergate than rampant misogyny from angry man children. All this stuff about ethics in journalism is a thinly veiled attempt to legitimize what was inherently and from the very start an organized harassment campaign.

If you hate yourself and want to read about the whole thing, wikipedia has a decent summary: https://en.wikipedia...ate_controversy .

Edit: I figured I'd throw in another couple of sources, in case someone where to read whatever comes of this and think maybe there was some worth to gamergate.

https://www.washingt...m=.ed9546d75410

https://www.theguard...omputer-age-war

https://gawker.com/w...eeks-1642909080

I don't think there's any reason to rehash the old debate from the feminist frequency thread:

https://forum.malaza...eo-game-tropes/

... But, okay lets go, I don't really have time for this discussion, but I love these debates... the links you posted have me very tempted to suddenly sympathize with Trump and the evil leftist media spinning stories. I cant get the Washington Post article to load for some reason but, Gawker is a terrible and biased source for anything really but especially Gamer Gate. The guardian article however certainly covers some of the matter but glosses over a lot of other stuff. I don't even remember this twine stuff.

The stuff I recall revolves around more than one discord thread (or what ever devs and media used then) being revealed where debates where had in secret about how to spin stories. Stories about Kotaku declaring gamers dead because something something avant gard post-gaming opinions. Zoe Quinn crying about doxing but feeling free to dox other developers or entrepeneurs she doesn't like (might be a competitor?). Quinn making fake doxxing accusations. Media aggressively pushing a pro-feminist stance in the wake of gamer gate, ousting normal thinking people who thought both sides where full of shit (on both sides, ON BOTH SIDES!), etc. As far as I recall Kotaku, Polygon and the like had plenty of very opinionated writers throthing at the mouth at any criticism of the narrative they were spinning.

Was it debunked that Zoe Quinn was sleeping around with a bunch of developers/media? The outrage there wasn't her sex life but that she, allegedly, slept with some media guy directly or indirectly involved with reviewing her game. I wont get into the sleazier parts of that whole mess.

Just to clarify here. I am not defending what Gamegate turned into, nor the harassment of Quinn and Co. but there was a core of truth there in terms of transparency and relationships and I never saw a single media related personality or outlet step forward and admit that they probably were being unprofessional. Quite the contrary (EDIT: See Total Biscuits interview with Stephen Totilo), I've seen plenty of content, including Giant Bomb, where the media happily defend their "incestuous" relationship with the video game industry because how else can they build a network and get information? The counter argument there is that very little video game coverage is actual journalism but it's a pretty hollow argument when sites do preview, review and lets play coverage of games. Giant Bomb tends to avoid reviews of companies they are friendly with, for example Iron Galaxies and the Rock Band people but there's so much more to it than that. I trust Giant Bomb to be on the level but there's a hell of a lot of sites out there I don't have the same faith in. Especially the ceaseless circle jerk that goes back and forth between the indie scene and the woke media - Like Waypoint, Kotaku, Polygon, etc.

Again, call me tin foil paranoid, but I swear the media tried to squash their own mess by blaming it all on the evil meninists and 4chan. I am telling you people, there were bad people on both sides. On both sides!

Just to take this statements of yours in order. Yeah, it's funny how you decry the gawker article as biased, and that the Guardian focuses on the wrong thing, and yet you have provided no believable source except for your memory, which seems incredibly faulty about the whole thing. It is almost as if you actually know very little about what went down, and dismiss the articles that describe what happened, in order to keep to your deeply held beliefs that feminism is at least equally to blame for the whole mess.

So, game developers were not revealed to have a secret channel of communication where they conspired against gamers of whatever. What was found was that game journalists communicated regularly. You know, like every single profession does. The big reveal was that several journalists across multiple pages discussed how to deal with the wave of harassment from the Gamergate movement. To describe that as some sort of secret cabal, or something nefarious just goes to show that most people in Gamergate have never had a professional career. Hardly a surprise.

Kotaku wrote an article stating that gaming is no longer a hobby limited to 'gamers', as did several other outlets in the weeks following the original GG outbreak. The argument was that 'gamer' was fading as a cultural identity, seeing as most people now play games in some fashion. The reason people in the movement got so upset was because they never did read the article, but like you, but simply accepted that the article was cause for outrage.

Zoe Quinn did not make fake doxxing accusations. She was doxxed, as you would know if you actually read any of the three articles I posted, or the wiki for that matter. I have not heard of her doxxing anyone, but since I couldn't see anything on google, and since you provided no source but your memory, I am just going to assume it's another 'fact' you were told and accepted because it fits your anti-feminist worldview.

Which leads us to the feminist part. I don't know what has happened to you in the last few years, Apt, but I think you'll find that outside of whichever gaming-blog hole you've found yourself in, feminism is not a slur or some kind of crazed ideology on the outskirts of political discourse. Feminism is more and more becoming the norm in western society, but because your idea of feminism is the typical internet caricature you don't even seem to realise it. Denmark is a feminist country and you seem to like it there. The media didn't suddenly throw themselves into a pro-feminist stance that alienated all those people in the middle. The media is broadly feminist because most of western society is feminist. Talking about representation, about social norms and culture is a natural and major part of discussing any sort of art, and in that discourse representation and so on becomes a big topic. As does the harassment of women.

None of the people she was accused of sleeping with reviewed her game. Which you would know had you read anything about the subject that was not a gamergate blog. Incidentally, none of those people became the target of harassment campaigns. Which is odd don't you think? Why would the developer and not the corrupt journalist, be the focus of a group fighting for transparency and ethics in video game journalism?

There never was a kernel of truth to the movement. It never cared about ethics in journalism. It was the last gasps of a misogynistic subculture that couldn't deal with having their hobby examined in a modern light. They couldn't deal with gaming companies catering to a broader audience. They couldn't deal with women pointing to their misogyny for all to see. When the accusations against Zoe Quinn surfaced all that anger and resentment exploded into a harassment campaign that actively targeted women within the industry. Sarkeesian, Quinn, Wu, Alexander and so on. All were flooded with hate and threats. At no point was ethics a focus. It was all about women being present where they weren't welcome.

Stop with both side nonsense. There was a harassment campaign against visible women in the gaming industry and there was everyone else.

[Morgoth]

Ah, I see that there were some complaints about this discussion. Sorry for continuing the whole thing, it's been a few days since I checked the thread last.

[Malankazooie]

Cause, on 20 November 2018 - 08:11 AM, said:

Do Ivanka and Jared get salaries?

I mean the fact that his son in law and daughter both work for his administration is something I am amazed that people don't make more of a fuss over.

With the Dems taking majority, it could be something that is investigated. Doubt it would ever happen though.

[Macros]

Gorefest, on 20 November 2018 - 12:19 PM, said:

Sex scandals.

Given trump's attraction to Ivanka....

[Gorefest]

Ew. No. Ew. Dude.

This post has been edited by Gorefest: 20 November 2018 - 04:17 PM

[Grief]

I think it'd be worth splitting this discussion into a new thread about identity politics more broadly. I'll move the posts (...just as soon as I remember how).

Edit: The new topic is here.

[worry]

That might be a good idea. I'll bring this thread back around to its original intent: the discussion of Youtube's algorithm we were having a couple days ago!


Half joking, as it mostly focuses on flat earthers and not the Trump effect in particular, though the parallels are readily apparent. It's a full thread worth checking out (in addition to the first article).

[Gorefest]

If you can be convinced by a few YouTube videos that the Earth is flat, I fear there was not much hope for you in the first place.

[Primateus]

I think this is the right thread for this.
Chicken Pox outbreak in anti-vax stronghold!

Spoiler

Quote

Chickenpox has taken hold of a school in North Carolina where many families claim religious exemption from vaccines.Cases of chickenpox have been multiplying at the Asheville Waldorf School, which serves children from nursery school to sixth grade in Asheville, N.C. About a dozen infections grew to 28 at the beginning of the month. By Friday, there were 36, the Asheville Citizen-Times reported.

The outbreak ranks as the state’s worst since the chickenpox vaccine became available more than 20 years ago. Since then, the two-dose course has succeeded in limiting the highly contagious disease that once affected 90 percent of Americans — a public health breakthrough.

The school is a symbol of the small but strong movement against the most effective means of preventing the spread of infectious diseases. The percentage of children under 2 years old who haven’t received any vaccinations has quadrupled since 2001, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Like the Disneyland measles outbreak in 2015, the flare-up demonstrates the real-life consequences of a shadowy debate fueled by junk science and fomented by the same sort of Twitter bots and trolls that spread misinformation during the 2016 presidential election. And it shows how a seemingly fringe view can gain currency in a place like Asheville, a funky, year-round resort town nestled between the Blue Ridge and Smoky Mountains.

“The school follows immunization requirements put in place by the state board of education, but also recognizes that a parent’s decision to immunize their children happens before they enter school,” the school explained in a statement to Blue Ridge Public Radio.

Jennifer Mullendore, the medical director of Buncombe County, N.C., was unambiguous: “We want to be clear: Vaccination is the best protection from chickenpox.”

“When we see high numbers of unimmunized children and adults, we know that an illness like chickenpox can spread easily throughout the community — into our playgrounds, grocery stores, and sports teams,” she said in a news release.

But not all parents seemed to grasp the gravity of the outbreak. Nor does everyone see the rationale behind vaccines, which some believe — contrary to scientific evidence — cause more severe health issues than they’re meant to cure. The claim of an autism risk, though it has been debunked, has remained a rallying cry of the anti-vaccine movement.

“What’s the big deal with chickenpox?” one city resident, Amy Gordon, told the Citizen-Times.

Chickenpox is serious, warns the CDC, “even life-threatening, especially in babies, adolescents, adults, pregnant women and people with weakened immune systems.”

A person can spread the disease one to two days before the rash appears, increasing the risk of broad transmission of the virus before it is detected.

That was before a two-dose vaccination program was introduced in the United States in 1995.

The virus used to crop up in about 4 million cases annually in the United States, causing more than 10,000 hospitalizations and between 100 and 150 deaths. Children were especially susceptible, as schools seemed to incubate the blisterlike rash, which appears first on the stomach, back and face and can extend over the entire surface of the body, creating as many as 500 itchy blisters.

The vaccine, which the CDC says is about 90 percent effective, hasn’t eliminated the varicella zoster virus, which causes chickenpox. But since the regimen became commercially available, it has reduced the number of cases, as well as their severity. A 14-year prospective study published in Pediatrics in 2013 found that the incidence of infection was nine- to 10-times lower than in the pre-vaccine era.

Still, the vaccine’s clearly documented merits remain unconvincing to some. Asheville Waldorf has one of the highest religious vaccination exemption rates in the state, according to data maintained by the state’s Department of Health and Human Services.

The private school has a higher rate of exemption on religious grounds than all but two other North Carolina schools, the Citizen-Times reported. During the 2017-18 school year, 19 of 28 kindergartners were exempt from at least one vaccine required by the state. Of the school’s 152 students, 110 had not received the chickenpox vaccine, the newspaper reported.

North Carolina requires all students in the state to receive certain immunizations. Among the vaccines required for kindergarten-aged children are two doses for chickenpox, two for measles and two for mumps. Seventh graders must again submit to immunization.

But the state also permits exemptions based on the advice of a physician — as well as on religious grounds.

“If the bona fide religious beliefs of an adult or the parent, guardian or person in loco parentis of a child are contrary to the immunization requirements contained in this Part, the adult or the child shall be exempt from the requirements,” state statute allows.

Recent efforts to tighten the rules have foundered. In 2015, state legislators withdrew a bill that would have all but eliminated the religious exemption after their efforts were met with strident protest. Protesters picketed the state’s General Assembly in Raleigh, warning of “Medical Terrorism.”

Meanwhile, the county’s medical director has been exhorting residents to immunize their children. “What happens when we lack community immunity? Measles is what happens,” Mullendore this fall told commissioners of the county, which had the highest rate of religious exemptions last year.

The friction between medical experts and the residents in their care is not unique to Buncombe County, where the parents of 5.7 percent of kindergartners claimed a religious exemption, or even to North Carolina, where the rate was 1.2 percent.


Forty-seven states allow religious exemptions to vaccine requirements, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. CDC data shows that the median percentage of kindergartners with an exemption from one or more required vaccine was highest in Oregon.

So, an outbreak of Chicken Pox in an area where the anti-vaccination movement is strong? I mean, whomever could have seen that coming?

I don't have children and, to be completely open, I am missing one or two vaccinations myself. Not because I'm an anti-vaxxer, or my parents are, it just never really got done.

But there's often talk about how vaccinations should be required by law. I'd certainly argue for that here in Denmark. But I suspect it's a more complicated question in the US.

But this is a health issue, right? Does the phrase "Your rights end where my begins?" not mean anything?

This post has been edited by Primateus: 21 November 2018 - 10:06 AM

[Mezla PigDog]

We don't vaccinate against chicken pox in the UK. I was surprised to learn that other countries do. I know it's serious in the usual at risk groups but I think because it isn't serious in young children and virtually all young children get it in this country and are therefore immune during the rest of their lifetime the healthcare economics don't stack up in favour of vaccination. So it is interesting how different developed countries with different healthcare systems approach vaccination for different illnesses. As there is a financial incentive to push various tests and vaccines in the US it fosters the element of distrust. That's not to say there is a shred of evidence supporting the anti-vax movement. I'm up for any vaccination that is going although going through the infant vaccinations with my son - the amount of stuff they got into him in a single visit did invoke some uneasiness. I'm a fully paid up member to "science" but he got 3 injections and 1 lot of drops in a single visit and a few weeks later had 4 injections and 1 lot of drops. I did have to stop and think about it being right. I stopped for all of 10seconds but considering my science healthcare background that is significant so I kind of understand why some parents blank the whole thing out and just say no. But then they're morons for not getting themselves educated on the subject!

[Gorefest]

Same in the Netherlands. Chicken pox is not part of the standard vaccination regime, although (as in the UK) it is available for specific groups who are at increased risk. As far as I understand, the main reason for this is that for children chicken pox is a relatively mild infection which clears well and grants natural immunity which is in many cases just as good or superior to the vaccination regime. It is only really dangerous for immuno-compromised people or adults who never attracted it. The latter group is a prime vaccine target. But in most cases you just make sure your child has attracted it before the age of 6-7 years and you and they are mostly fine for life. 'Chicken pox parties' is apparently a thing here in the UK to accomplish this (i.e. have all the local kids go over to play with one of their infected friends).

[Mezla PigDog]

Healthcare professionals do not advocate chicken pox parties but I can see why they are popular. Chicken pox requires 1 to 2 weeks at home which for working parents is a royal pain in the arse. It has been round my sons nursery class twice in the last 5 months and he still hasn't caught it. Both times were at points where I had seriously important stuff to do at work and I was dreading him getting it. The thought of being able to get it done and dusted at a time of my choosing is very tempting.

Actually that might be another reason why the vaccine is popular in the US where paid time off work is harder to come by.

This post has been edited by Mezla PigDog: 21 November 2018 - 01:04 PM

[Macros]

genuine question, chicken pox scars? does that happen? I can't think of anyone I know that has scars from chicken pox and I'm fairly sure everyone I know has had chicken pox!